Category Archives for New Hope Church

Recently I had coffee with a friend who had worked with Lou Gerstner, one of my favorite CEO’s. Back in the 1990’s IBM was about to go under. They reported the biggest corporate loss of all time, and Gerstner was brought in to restructure and rebuild the company.

While initially IBM was forced to lay people off, today they boast a workforce of 400,000 and the company is thriving. However, in the midst of the turmoil Gerstner fired the #1 producer in the company!

Why would he do that? Because the employee operated against the cultural value of teamwork. On a side note I totally understand. At New Hope Church we believe people are hurting and living with a great deal of stress. The church should be the one place they can come and be accepted and welcomed. If you have a hard time accepting everyone, then you would be uncomfortable in a leadership role at New Hope. One of our core tenets is a welcoming atmosphere.

Back to IBM. After they fired their #1 producer what was the fallout? There wasn’t one. The company never missed a beat.

Think about it. The #1 producer was not indispensable.

As Seth Godin said in his book Linchpin, “Every day, bosses, customers, and investors make hard choices about whom to support and whom to eliminate, downsize, or avoid.”

In most fields tenure is no longer a guarantee. You must show up every day living out the company values.

Perhaps now you know the answer to the question, “Are you indispensable?”

How many of us charge into the New Year determined that this year will be different?

So we set off and begin setting goals, some ambitious but unattainable. Some marginal but uninspiring. Some too far in the future and unclear.

Nonetheless, we set out writing down how this year will be different.

Weight and physical fitness. Check.

Get out of debt. Check.

Date night once a month. Check.

Stop smoking. Check.

Now that we are one week into the New Year are we satisfied that we are on track?

Or is it possible that we have overlooked the most important of all?

What about some Soul Resolutions? Quite simply, these have to do with seemingly intangibles of life. Although in many respects they are not.

How many of us have addressed our irritability with the proper resolution? Oh sure, we say things like, “This year I am going to be less irritable.” And that’s it. We have done nothing to address the issue other than simply “Say it.”

For the record go ahead and add to the list things like moodiness, pride, obnoxiousness, resentment, and anger. I can’t tell you how many people I know who will continue to struggle with these unless their soul changes.

All of us will continue to damage our own lives and those around us if we neglect our soul.

With that in mind let me give you five quick hits for your soul.

1. Spend fifteen minutes a day reading your Bible and praying.

2. Pray for people you know who are hurting and serve them in any way you can. Sometimes all you can do is pray.

3. Connect with others regularly in order to share your burdens and also allow them to share theirs.

4. Give regularly and generously to the church you attend. Yesterday at New Hope we heard the testimony of a family who began tithing two years ago and how it changed their lives.

5. Pray for those you now who do not attend church and invite them when appropriate. Once again, at New Hope I am starting a series January 12 entitled, Faith in the Midst of Pain and Suffering. At the core it is a message about the soul. And it will be very helpful for anyone you know.

Those five things are not hard to do. They do not take a lot of time. The downside is you cannot measure the health of your soul in a week’s time or sometime a year. As I mention earlier, we have a family that now two years later one of their soul resolutions is very visible.

As the New Year gets underway in earnest this week, and you look over your aspirations for 2014, ask Am I Missing Something?